Australian Banks Friend Fintech Startups - Wall St. Journal - "The nation’s relative affluence, smartphone penetration of almost 90%, its fast adoption of electronic-payment technology, and the seemingly unbreakable dominance of four highly profitable banks make it a prime target for disruption."

Lending Club and Smaller Banks in Unlikely Partnership - Wall St. Journal - "The broader partnership was put together and overseen by BancAlliance, an industry cooperative group based in Maryland that develops products for the small banks by banding together and giving them a scale they wouldn’t have alone."

Is regulation holding back financial inclusion? A look at the evidence - GSMA Mobile Money for the Unbanked Blog - "Enabling digital payments and transfers is the first step to creating universal access to a broad range of financial services and improving the stability and integrity of the financial system, thus fostering socio-economic empowerment of individuals and communities."

Bitcoin: will 2015 be a make-or-break year? - The Guardian - "Even those convinced of the potential bitcoin holds do not deny that it has its work cut out. It will take major strides to change the minds of skeptics."

YellowPepper’s Mobile Wallet For LatAm Draws Another $19M From LIV Capital And Others - TechCrunch - "The Yepex wallet is an Android and iOS-based wallet where the users can store all their different debit and credit cards and start purchasing without giving away sensitive information (such as PAN, expiration date, CVV), but can instead transact with a unique token that can either be communicated to the merchant manually or via HCE or QR codes."

Digital River Expands Relationship with American Express to Enhance Payment Services in Mexico - “We know from experience managing more than $30 billion in annual online transactions that consumers are more apt to buy when convenient and familiar payment options are available to them,” said Souheil Badran, Digital River’s senior vice president and general manager of Digital River World Payments. “Adding these services in Mexico will help us further expand our existing relationship with American Express and strengthen our international payments offering.”

Jumio Unveils New ID Scan Image Capturing Technology in Latest Version of Netverify - "The new release features a brand new ID image capturing technology, which allows users to position their ID any which way within their camera view. This enhanced template matching capability automatically detects the ID edges, rotates, and accurately crops it in the frame, regardless of the angle at which the user is holding the ID."

PEX Visa Prepaid Card and Tallie Launch Integrated Expense Management Solution - “The core value proposition of the PEX Visa Prepaid Card service is that it eases the burden companies place on their employees and accounting departments to cover expense outlays,” said Chris Farrell, CEO of Tallie. “PEX Card allows companies to issue prepaid corporate cards to all employees without the same risks of issuing traditional corporate cards or the accounting labor associated with cash advances."

Google Shopping to Counter Amazon - Wall St. Journal - "Google has approached retailers about creating a “buy” button for its online shopping site that would be similar to Amazon’s popular “one-click ordering” feature, according to people familiar with the discussions."

Small Bank in Kansas Is a Financial Testing Ground - New York Times - "The creation of the new bank, and the maintenance of the old one, are the work of a couple who were born in India and ended up in Kansas after living in Silicon Valley and passing through jobs at Google and Lehman Brothers."

Why Silicon Valley thinks we hate our wallets - SFGate.com - “In that sense, there’s a little bit of a don’t fix what ain’t broke approach that I would argue for,” said Levchin. “Innovating around the user interface of payments is a little gratuitous.”

Square Competitor ShopKeep Giving Away Free Equipment to Accept Apple Pay - Re/code.net - "The free giveaway underscores the fierce competition among young companies such as ShopKeep, Square and Poynt, as well as bigger players like First Data, to get small businesses to ditch their clunky point-of-sale equipment for newer, modernized checkout software and hardware."

Perseverance Pays Off: The Lending Club Story - Jeff Crowe - Norwest Venture Partners - "The Lending Club story is a testament to the importance of keeping one’s cool during periods of high stress and not giving up on a great idea."

American Express Serve® Announces Research Pilot to Encourage Consumer Saving - “Rarely do researchers have the opportunity to test their theories in real world environments, using actual financial products, and directly with their target customers,” said Neal Sample, President, Enterprise Growth, American Express. “We see tremendous potential in enabling researchers to use our Serve software platform to improve the lives of the financially underserved. This is why we established our Financial Innovation Lab, and it’s why we are pleased to be working on this research pilot.”

Fraud-proof Credit Cards Possible with Quantum Physics - "This innovative security measure, known as Quantum-Secure Authentication, can confirm the identity of any person or object, including debit and credit cards, even if essential information (like the complete structure of the card) has been stolen. It uses the unique quantum properties of light to create a secure question-and-answer (Q&A) exchange that cannot be “spoofed” or copied."

NACHA Membership Approves New Rules to Further Improve ACH Network Quality - “These rules show that financial institutions can come together through private-sector rulemaking to address practices that may result in harm to consumers,” said Janet O. Estep, president and CEO of NACHA. “In developing these rules, NACHA incorporated broad industry feedback and balanced differing perspectives from many parties. The rules represent workable solutions that can be implemented by financial institutions.”

For Smarter Security, a Smarter Walmart MasterCard - "Walmart has long been a proponent for EMV chip technology and installed EMV-capable terminals in stores about eight years ago. These terminals are now activated in more than 4,600 stores, including all Sam’s Club locations."

Glenbrook's Dennis Moser on Merchant Payments Complexity - "Wrapping up a recent project, we landed on the topic of how merchants should be thinking about their payments infrastructure and how, often, its very complexity causes trouble for the merchant. Here’s the gist of our conversation."

On the Wires:

MasterCard Board of Directors Recommends Two New Candidates for Election - “The world continues to get smaller and technology opens new doors every day,” said Richard Haythornthwaite, Chairman of the Board, MasterCard. “MasterCard is advancing to meet consumer, business and societal needs in an increasingly digital world, while maintaining a focus on convenience and security. Merit and Julius’ experience and insights will add to and complement our existing Board as we pursue this vision.”

Warburg Pincus To Acquire Electronic Funds Source - "Warburg Pincus ... today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement whereby one of its affiliates will acquire 100% of Electronic Funds Source LLC, a leader in innovative corporate payments solutions, from an investor group including First Data Transportation Services, Inc., CTP Holdings LLC and FJ Management Inc."

Lending Club Acquires Springstone - "As part of the financing of this transaction, Lending Club also announced the closing of an equity capital raise. Investors in the $65 million round included funds and accounts managed by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Wellington Management Company, LLP, BlackRock and Sands Capital."

Worldpay Launches China Sales Office - "The Shanghai office is headed up by Tang Kok San, VP – Business Development China, and will offer all of Worldpay’s e-commerce customer-facing functions, including relationship management and corporate support."

Bitcoin Startup Investments Surpass $117 Million - Bloomberg - "Bitcoin, the most popular digital currency, is drawing attention from institutional investors after evolving over five years from an intellectual novelty into a global financial network."

Q & A with Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche - CNN Money (Fortune) - "When you put together the low cost of capital of the banks and the low cost and great service of Lending Club, having banks relinquish the customer relationships and becoming investors on the platform is a good way to transform the banking system but associate the banks with that transformation is good."

The Amazing Vaporizing 35%: Banks and Mobile Banking - MasterCard Payments Perspectives Blog - "All of this heat and noise in my opinion unintentionally obfuscates the real situation, which is less a threat than a fact of life: competition is increasing pricing pressure, pushing margins down across the payments ecosystem."

Understanding Regulators’ Warnings - "Let’s take a look at the dynamics around regulators’ warnings, and reporting about those warnings, to get things in perspective. We’ll use the U.S. state of Massachusetts as an example."

Small Businesses Get Paid Faster With QuickBooks Payments - "As part of the expanding QuickBooks ecosystem of online products and services, QuickBooks Online users who also use QuickBooks Payments get their invoices paid on average two times faster than those who don’t. When these small businesses email their invoices and allow their customers to pay online, they significantly reduce the time it takes to receive payment."

Fed Says It Followed Interchange Law - Credit Union Times - "The regulator argued that it had followed the law in requiring, for example, that debit issuers have two payment networks on each card and not just one and that the retailers who had filed the suit had misstated the law's requirement."

RewardsNOW Upgrades ShoppingFLING, its Merchant Funded Rewards Program - "Steven VanFleet, President and CEO of RewardsNOW, Inc., says that “Today’s shoppers are looking for more customized, relevant, and tailored offers delivered how and when they want. This upgrade to the ShoppingFLING program allows our loyalty program participants to essentially create their own online mall by creating Collections of their favorite stores."

Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated. Find something interesting to share? Tell us about it: gotnews@paymentsnews.com!

PayPal 'check in' app lets you pay with your face on the UK high street - Wired UK - "All customers need to do is check in on the app by dropping a pin on a retailer. Their name and picture will then be passed to the shop, restaurant or bar in question and once they have agreed the amount to be paid, the cashier can charge them by clicking on the image."

Not Banks, but Still Lending Money and Drawing Investors - New York Times - "One of the hottest areas is the market for personal loans, which is attracting money from venture capital investors, spurred by the fast growth of the largest online platform, Lending Club, and the paper profits for its early backers."

Visa Europe appoints new CEO - "Visa Europe today announced the appointment of Nicolas Huss as its next President and CEO. Huss (48) will join Visa Europe from Apollo Group, where he is Chief Executive, Avant Spain and Ireland, on 1 October."

Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated. Find something interesting to share? Tell us about it: gotnews@paymentsnews.com!

Note: Headline News is compiled by Glenbrook Partners. Throughout the day, as we spot interesting developments, this post is updated. Find something interesting to share? Tell us about it: gotnews@paymentsnews.com!

Lending Club has announced that Google has acquired a minority stake in the company as part of a secondary transaction whereby new and existing investors acquired shares from existing investors. Buyers include Google and existing investor Foundation Capital.

"Lending Club is using the Internet to reshape the financial system and profoundly transform the way people think of credit and investment," said Google’s David Lawee. "We are excited to be a part of it."

"Few companies have such an in-depth understanding of the Internet as Google," said Lending Club CEO Renaud Laplanche. "We believe our relationship with Google will be very helpful in better serving our customers. We couldn’t be more excited to have them on board."

Lending Club facilitated more than $1.65 billion in loans since inception including over $350 million in the last quarter.

[Editor's note: see also this TechCrunch story on this latest round of financing for Lending Club.]

Lending Club and PerkStreet Financial have announced the launch of a 'Shred Your Credit Card' contest.

The contest inspires consumers to end the cycle of credit card debt once and for all by destroying their credit cards. Rewards of up to $1,000* will go to the contestants who devise the most creative way to destroy their credit cards and share the video. Entries can be submitted and viewed at www.shredyourcreditcard.com.

* All prizes will be paid with Visa Gift Cards, terms and conditions apply.

Lending Club has announced closing a $24.5 million investment round led by Foundation Capital with participation by existing investors Morgenthaler Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners.
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LendingClub.com, a peer lending network that brings together investors and creditworthy borrowers, has announced that it has closed a $12 million Series B round of funding. Morgenthaler Ventures led the round and is joined by existing investors, Norwest Venture Partners and Canaan Partners. Rebecca Lynn, a Morgenthaler Principal, is joining Lending Club’s board of directors.
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